Once again, Vero Beach lives up to its nickname: Velcro Beach

Courtesy of Google Images.

For two people who want to get to Georgetown, Exumas by Christmas, what the heck are we still doing here in Vero Beach? We arrived on November 24th. What gives?

Well, once we decided to go to Luperon this summer it kicked off a cascade of decisions that resulted in several orders being placed with Amazon, West Marine, Defender, and what we knew would be the biggest hassle of all – approval from the insurance company for a vacation override for Jeff’s prescriptions.

We actually have the approval for the override, but the insurance company won’t process it until they mail his regular supply. Why it should matter given that we aren’t talking about any drugs with street value is beyond me. We could circumvent the whole process and simply pay out of pocket but one drug is over $440/month – the same drug that will cost $100/month in the Dominican Republic. Don’t get me started on the U.S. health care system.

Bottom line, at this point we’re sitting around waiting for packages to arrive. Can’t we just buy these things in the Bahamas or the Dominican Republic? Sure, but some of them are easier to obtain here (i.e. coir for the composting toilet), and others we need or want before we can go (a chart plotter chip for the Caribbean and Central America, a whisker pole for the jib). So we sit and wait, crossing items off of the to-do list.

At least the majority of the food provisioning is complete. Our friends Allyn and Bob drove over from Sarasota to visit us and we had a great time hanging out with them. While they were here they kindly drove us to Wal Mart and waited while we bought food basics for the next three months.

Believe me, there are certainly worse places we could be waiting. Vero Beach is a cruiser’s dream – inexpensive moorings, a free bus system with routes that take you virtually anywhere you would need, a nice beach a short walk away, a good Farmer’s Market every Saturday, and plenty of events.

But regardless of those niceties, at this point we are REALLY ready to go – we can’t wait to throw ourselves into that beautiful Bahamian water. We just need to wait for the whisker pole to arrive. And the chart plotter chip. And the tubes for the Walker Bay. And the prescriptions. And. . . . Hopefully we’ll be moving on within a week. Wagers on whether that will actually happen are being accepted.

Hi Pete – Thanks! We’re hoping to be moving on from Vero by this time next week. If we can get a weather window quickly then we will repeat last year’s crossing – Lake Worth to Great Sale to Green Turtle. If it looks like we’re going to need to wait awhile then we’ll going down the Florida coast to make some southing since we’re heading for the Exumas. We’ll see how it goes. Kimberly